length, in the dull twilight of a rainy day, the old kingly city of Aix
la Chapelle on a plain below us. After a scene at the custom-house,
where our baggage was reclaimed with tickets given at Verviers, we drove
to the _Hotel du Rhin_, and while warming our shivering limbs and drying
our damp garments, felt tempted to exclaim with the old Italian author:
"O! holy and miraculous tavern!"

The Cathedral with its lofty Gothic tower, was built by the emperor
Otho in the tenth century. It seems at present to be undergoing repairs,
for a large scaffold shut out the dome. The long hall was dim with
incense smoke as we entered, and the organ sounded through the high
arches with an effect that startled me. The windows glowed with the
forms of kings and saints, and the dusty and mouldering shrines which
rose around were colored with the light that came through. The music
pealed out like a triumphal march, sinking at times into a mournful
strain, as if it celebrated and lamented the heroes who slept below. In
the stone pavement nearly under my feet was a large square marble slab,
with words "CAROLO MAGNO." It was like a dream, to stand there on the
tomb of the mighty warrior, with the lofty arches of the Cathedral
above, filled with the sound of the divine anthem. I mused above his
ashes till the music ceased and then left the Cathedral, that nothing
might break the romantic spell associated with that crumbling pile and
the dead it covered. I have always revered the memory of Charlemagne. He
lived in a stern age, but he was in mind and heart a man, and like
Napoleon, who placed the iron crown which had lain with him centuries in
the tomb, upon his own brow, he had an Alpine grandeur of mind, which
the world was forced to acknowledge.

At noon we took the _chars-à-banc_, or second-class carriages, for fear
of rain, and continued our journey over a plain dotted with villages and